A Critical Evaluation of the Lawless Utopia Proposed by Golding's The
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A Critical Evaluation Of The Lawless Utopia Proposed By Golding’s The Lord Of The Flies And The Gta Games. *Abhik Maiti, Pursuing M.A in English, University of Calcutta. M.A in History. Diploma in Tagore Literature. Diploma in Fine Arts. **Deep Naskar, Pursuing M.A in English, University of Calcutta. Abstract: The Raft of the Medusa (French: Le Radeau de la Méduse) is an oil painting of 1818– 1819 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer ThéodoreGéricault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. It is an over•life•size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse. According to critic Jonathan Miles, the raft carried the survivors "to the frontiers of human experience. At least 146 men and one woman—were piled onto a hastily built raft after Medusa ran aground on a sandbank off the West African coast, near the present day Mauritania. Crazed, parched and starved, the survivors slaughtered mutineers, ate their dead companions and killed the weakest." After 13 days, on 17 July 1816, the raft was rescued by the Argus by chance—no particular search effort was made by the French for the raft. By this time only 15 men were still alive; the others had been killed or thrown overboard by their comrades, cannibalized brutally, died of starvation, or thrown themselves into the sea in despair. (Wikipedia) The Raft of Medusa that inspired many artistic endeavours is a classic portrayal of the ingrained violence in human nature that surfaces in a state of unalloyed freedom from societal www.ijellh.com 230 bondages. This display violence is not a stray phenomenon, as civilized people of Europe can also engage into barbaric and inhumane act under certain circumstances. This particular event stripped humanity of all their glory, education and proud civilized ideas, naturally it affected deeply to the masses as well as to the artists. This paper aims to evaluate the predominance of violence in human nature hidden under the guise of an apparent civilised being. William Golding‘s Lord of the Flies explores the same theme and Rockstar Games‘ Grand Theft Auto brings the motif of violence into one that may be lived through in the form of virtual reality in the game-space. TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES VIOLENCE AND GRAND THEFT AUTO VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES (GTA) AND LORD OF THE FLIES PROPOSE THE CONCEPT OF LAWLESS UTOPIA WORKS CITED A Critical Evaluation of the Lawless Utopia Proposed by Golding‘s The Lord of the Flies and the GTA Games. Introduction: Machiavelli in his The Prince, tried to establish it it as a fact, that violence is humankind's innate nature. This fact provided him the reasons to be "realistic" enough to throw aside moral scruples in order to deal with people. The seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbs indicated, "I put forth a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual restless desire for power after power that ceases only in death," this particularly chaotic element of human nature made him favour any kind of government, whether authoritarian or tyrannical, that would keep peace and order, by forbidding the innate instinct of human to strike violence to one another. He mentioned the "dissolute condition of masterless man" which requires "a cohesive power to tie their hands from raping and revenge." www.ijellh.com 231 Utopia is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities. And a nearly perfect society requires no law or rule to govern itself. However implying such idealistic theory to reality sounds quite surrealistic. Chronologically, the first recorded utopian proposal is Plato's Republic. However Plato didn't advocate an entirely lawless utopia, he proposed a kingdom where wise rulers will eradicate poverty and chaos through justly distributed resources, and on their own will. According to Lyman Tower Sergeant "[t]here are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian, and many more utopias" Lyman Tower Sargent (23 September 2010) in Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. (Oxford. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-957340-0) describes how Thomas Moore in his famous creation Utopia depicted law as "They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations, whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects… They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters, and to wrest the laws; and therefore they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor." So it is kind evident that intellectual minds such as Plato and Thomas Moore though have favoured a lawelwess utopian society, yet they agree on the fact that establishment of an entirely lawless utopia is somewhat impossible. In 1923, Albert Einstein, already recognized worldwide for introducing revolutionary metamorphosis in the field of physics, wrote a letter to another rebellious intellectual pioneer, Sigmund Freud. Einstein found himself in deep turbulence by the trauma of the First World War which he observed very closely, and also by the looming danger of the Second World War. He was horrified by such mass homicidal event. Considering the renowned psychologist Freud might shed some light upon it, he asked a simple yet profound question - "Why do men make war?" “Dear professor Freud, is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?” Einstein mentioned about “that small but determined group active in all nation, www.ijellh.com 232 composed of individuals who… regard warfare the manufacture and sale of arms simply an option of advancing their personal interest and enlarging their personal authority.” And then he asked, “How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions.” Einstein volunteered an answer, “Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.” And then he presents the ultimate question to Freud, “is it possible to control man‟s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychosis of hate and destructiveness?” Freud replied, “You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction amenable to such stimulations. I entirely agree with you... The most casual glance at world history will show an unending series of conflict betweens between one community and another” Freud pointed out two fundamental instincts in human being- the Eros or life instinct and the Thanatos or instinct of death and destruction. After pointing to “the psychoses of hate and destructiveness”, Freud concluded, ―Experience proves that it is rather the so called „Intelligentsia‟ that is most apt to yield to these disastrous collective suggestions‖ Here are two of the greatest revolutionary minds of the century, helpless, depressed and frustrated for the recurring wars. Perhaps this despair of Einstein regarding the war led him to comment, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." In his last chapter of Socio-biology, E.O.Wilson, a Harvard University professor raises the question, “Are human beings innately aggressive?” two sentences later he says: “The answer to it is yes” And then he explains why: “Throughout history, warfare, representing the most organised technique of aggression, has been endemic to every form of society- from hunter gatherer bands to industrial states.” So while evaluating the facts, it becomes more and more evident that violence is something very intrinsic to be embedded deep inside human nature. And the exhibition such acts become more visible and erupts into utter chaos while under a Free State without any authoritarian rule. The inborn instinct of humankind, like any other beast, is to dominate the race called ‗survival of the fittest‘. Hence open world games such as GTA opens up portal to such myriad and unrealistic possibility to the player. The games opens up in a virtual topography where his/her mind can roam free and venture in such acts which nurtures his www.ijellh.com 233 malignant will and satisfies his morbid desires, which Hobbs pointed out about.The game present the player with such virtual space which allows the gamer to seek pleasure from or channelise his capabilities from his inherent latent desires and sadistic acts of surviving in a situation akin to The Raft of Medusa, which seems practically impossible and irrational in a strictly lawful ordered society.GTA is a game that offers unrestrained freedom. By accessing ‗the cheat codes' the player can attain such states which can be comparable to a semi- omnipotency, such as becoming immortal, or taking full control of their lives. The following is a list of cheat codes and the functions they serve. Cheat Code Effect it Produces within the Game-Space Liquor Drunk Mode Highex Explosive Ammo Round Hothands Explosive Melee Attacks Catch Me Fast Run Incendiary Flaming Bullets Pain Killer Invincibility Turtle Maximum Health &Armour Power Up Recharge Ability Skyfall Can fly Dead Eye Slow Motion Aim Skydive Parachute Make It Rain Change Weather Floater Moon Gravity Snow Day Slippery Cars/ Drifting/ Sliding Slowmo Slow Motion Buzz Off Spawn Helicopter with Weapon Comet Spawn Comet It is this chance to enjoy the essence of unrestrained freedom that makes GTA so popular.